EDWARDS COLUMN: A guaranteed path to success

As I watched Texas A&M hand Clemson its first basketball loss of the year on Thanksgiving, it occurred to me that one of the best things that could happen for the career of an aspiring basketball coach is for me not to hire you.

You see, Mark Turgeon is the head coach at Texas A&M and I had the opportunity to hire him as an assistant when I was the head coach at Charleston Southern. At the time, Mark was graduating from the University of Kansas where he played under legendary coach Larry Brown.

My former assistant, Bill Bayno, previously worked at Kansas and knew both Coach Brown and Mark Turgeon. Coach Brown called me and recommended Mark. He said if I did this favor for him, he would help me with any jobs I may pursue down the road. No brainer, right?

I was young and thought I knew it all and I had my own ideas about who I should hire. Larry Brown wasn’t going to tell me who to hire! So I passed on Mark Turgeon. Turgeon ended up staying at Kansas and got Coach Brown coffee during the Jayhawks’ run to the national championship in 1988.

The rest is history. Turgeon was an assistant for a few years before landing the head coaching job at Jacksonville State in Alabama. He did OK there but jumped to Wichita State a few years later, a jump made easier by the fact Larry Brown was pushing him for the job.

Meanwhile, I am having some good years at Charleston Southern, and I can’t jump over a cheese sandwich.

I should also get five percent of Gregg Marshall’s paycheck. You may remember Gregg as the head coach at Winthrop when they went to seven straight NCAA tournaments. He is the current head coach at Wichita State University.

I passed on Gregg when he was coming out of Randolph-Macon College in Virginia in the mid-1980s. I had offered him the job but rescinded the offer after a dinner meeting. It was the best thing that ever happened to him.

A few years later, Coach Marshall hooked on with John Kresse at the College of Charleston and spent eight years learning the game under a master. He put his education to good use at Winthrop and parlayed that into a very lucrative position with the Shockers.

I could go on and on. There is Dave Williams, a guy who I actually fired from Charleston Southern, who now makes about half a million a year working with Nike. Kevin Hobbs, one of my first assistants, is now a high school principal in Maryland who will retire in a few years with a pension in six figures.

Oh, there have been some success stories for guys who actually worked for me. Brad Dobbels, the coach at Goose Creek High School, won the South Carolina State Championship last year. Jonathan Holmes was with me here at Francis Marion when I started and he is doing very well as an assistant at William and Mary.

I have a guy, Tommy Conrad, who is a scout with the Orlando Magic. Andy Sachs is a head coach now at Bethany College. Lamont Paris is an assistant at Akron. Those guys are making their mark despite the assistant coaching albatross I placed around their respective necks.

It is only a matter of time before my current assistants, Jarron Hinton and Crayton Jones, wise up. Jarron and C.J., when you make it big, I expect you to buy your FMU athletic department chicken bog from me.

— Gary Edwards is the men’s basketball coach at Francis Marion. E-mail him at .